


Petal to the Metal

by silentdroplets



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Fluff, Gen, How Do I Tag, Minor Violence, Original Character(s), Slight Cursing, but it's just qrow's motto, but she's just one of ruby's friends hehe, ruby learns some pretty heavy stuff here, their backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-05 01:42:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11567694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentdroplets/pseuds/silentdroplets
Summary: Ruby learns her scythe-wielding craft under Qrow's skilful eye, becoming one of the top students in Beacon when Ozpin notices her expertise in wielding her weapon.But how did she learn it, and what else did she pick up along the way in the goal of becoming a huntress to protect and defend?A little glimpse into the backstory of Ruby and Qrow, when they were student and teacher in Signal Academy respectively.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> for koen (even though he won't see this). thank you for coming up with the title and giving me inspiration and useful information regarding the backstory of Crescent Rose.
> 
> note: i haven't been writing multi-chapter fics for a really, really long time, so please bear with me! thank you :D

The world of Remnant is a beautiful place, where life thrives and new, cutting edge technology is created to improve the lives of humans, Faunus, and other creatures alike.

Like any other world, however, there must be a balance between good and evil. The creatures of Grimm roam Remnant, gravitating towards negative emotions and killing all humans in its path. Humanity initially had no way to counter these creatures and were defenceless - until they discovered Dust, a naturally occurring energy source.

Humanity then harvested this Dust and incorporated it into many of its uses, including weapons that could harness the energy of Dust to fight against the Grimm. Now, Huntsmen and Huntresses use these weapons to fight against these Grimm to protect themselves or as a sport.

To become such Huntsmen and Huntresses, one must undergo training in one of the Primary Combat Schools in Remnant: Signal, Sanctum and Alsius Academies. That is where students learn the basic skills of combat, such as how to forge their own weapon. Potential students then move on to Academies - Beacon, Atlas, Haven and Shade Academies - to become professional Huntsmen and Huntresses.

These students have their own reasons as to why they want to become a Huntsman or Huntress, some being to prove themselves or for the fun of it. One particular Huntress-in-training has a reason that many don't - to protect others.

This reason alone was strong enough a source of motivation to propel her desire to become a Huntress, and throughout the way, she learnt some of the gruesome realities of being one - but that did not put a damper on her enthusiasm.

This is the story of Ruby Rose and how she learnt the truths of the battlefield and forged her own weapon - with a little help from her uncle, Qrow Branwen.

-

"Stay right there, birdie!"

"Oh, you are not getting me that easily-"

Qrow is tackled to the floor by a laughing Ruby. He caws once, twice, and lets his head fall to the ground with a groan.

"I'm dying, so you've won, young one," he croaks, before letting his arms fall as well. He sticks his tongue out and Ruby giggles.

"Come on, Uncle Qrow, you know you're stronger than this!"

He cracks an eye open. "Well, that is true," he says and smirks. He sets Ruby back on her feet and gets up, dusting himself off. "It's your bedtime now, isn't it? Why don't we go now?" He picks up a lamp that had fallen to the floor during the scuffle and begins to walk towards the bedrooms, but stops when he feels a tug on his shirt.

He looks down, and finds Ruby gripping onto his shirt with a mischievous smile.

"Hey, Uncle Qrow, can I hold your scythe before I go to sleep?"

Ruby is now looking at him with huge, pleading eyes. He doesn't know why she wants to hold something that is more lethal, scarier, and honestly, much bigger than herself, but he also doesn't want to question it. He shrugs.

"Well, why not?" he says, pulling the scythe off his back and squatting down to offer it to Ruby. She drops the sword and places both her hands on its snath, her eyes shimmering in wonder, and pulls the whole scythe off his hands.

"Woah, wait, Ruby-"

She wobbles on her feet and very nearly stabs a table, scrapes the floor and stabs her own hand before Qrow holds her steady.

"I can't believe this, Uncle Qrow," she breathes as she takes in the slight glow and shine of the scuffed metal in her arms. "This is the scythe you used to save Sis and I from that monster that day!" She squeals in excitement, swinging the scythe through the air.

Qrow laughs. "Alright, alright, that's enough," he says, taking the scythe from her hands and placing it on the table. It creaks under the extra weight. "Don't want you cutting up your dad's couch, now would we?"

Ruby grins a toothy smile.

He heads into the girls' room, only to find Yang fast asleep in the other bed. Ruby runs up beside him and waves the cardboard sword at him.

"Well, seems like it's my job to tell you a bedtime story now, eh?"

She nods. "Yang's gone to sleep, so now it's you who has to do it instead!"

The smile in her eyes is evident as she takes a running jump towards her bed and catapults herself into the blankets in a burst of petals. "Thanks, Uncle Qrow!" she whispers when he shifts a chair to her bed and seats himself down.

"Now, what story do you want me to tell you?"

Ruby thinks for a moment, before answering, "You choose!"

He chuckles. "How about Little Red Riding Hood?"

"Okay!"

"Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a village near the forest," he begins to recite in the most bland, monotone voice he could muster. "Whenever she went out, the little girl wore a red riding hood-"

Ruby claps her hand over her mouth. "Uncle Qrow!" she laughs through the gaps between her fingers. He grins.

"Alright, Rubes, I'll read it properly."

When he finishes the story, the girl is snuggled under swaths of blankets, eyes droopy. Before she falls asleep, however, she looks up at Qrow.

"You know, I've always wondered why Little Red Riding Hood couldn't have been a huntress and fought the wolf with a cool weapon when she saw him," she tells him, words slurred by fatigue. She mimes kicking and punching despite her drowsiness, though, and nearly falls off the bed. Qrow has to rush forth to catch Ruby before she cracks her head on the floor and ends up with a blanket-cocooned Ruby grinning sleepily at him in his arms. He smiles back at her and puts her back onto the bed as gingerly as he can.

"Well, why not you put that twist into the story, chipmunk?"

Ruby nods once. "Maybe I'll do that," she mumbles, yawning, and promptly falls asleep.

—

"Hey, Ruby."

She stops doodling on the worksheet that Taiyang had given her to complete and looks up, only to have a sheet of crisp, smoothed-out paper shoved into her hands. Qrow is standing at the opposite end of the table she's at.

"That's the application form for Signal Academy," he says, nodding towards the paper in her hands. "Think long and hard about whether your talk about being a huntress is truly genuine and fill up that form, kiddo. The deadline's this month." He walks out of her bedroom, leaving Ruby to stare at the form.

"Wh-whether my talk about being a huntress is...genuine?"

The air quivers in anticipation of her reaction.

She leaps up from her chair and waves the form around. "Of course it's genuine!" she cries. "I'm definitely going to attend the Academy no matter how much I think through it, and I'm going to be a good huntress!"

When she finishes filling up the form, she finds Qrow in the kitchen, drinking from the pint he'd poured for himself, makes him promise to take her to Signal to submit the form the moment the sun rose the next morning, and continues to scream in exhilaration as she leaps about the house.

—

Signal is bigger than she'd expected it to be.

Of course, Ruby had pieced together an idea about how it looked like from the bits of pictures and stories Qrow showed and told her about when he visited each week, but she had never thought it would be this populated and energised.

She tags behind Qrow, the application form sealed in an envelope and trapped in her grip.

When they arrive at the main building, she marvels at the statue of a famous hunter she'd heard about from Yang's stories. A smile finds its way to her lips.

"I'm going to be the huntress in Little Red Riding Hood, and I'll protect everyone else!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby begins taking her lessons at Signal, and Qrow shows her how to wield his scythe.

Ruby can not be more bored for the rest of her entire life than in this class. Her future self would come back to tell her that she also could not have been more wrong - if she had the chance to - but for now, she sits in a creaky chair with an equally creaky table and plays with a stray petal floating around her hair. The teacher drones on and on and on and _on_ (she could probably go on forever, Ruby thinks) and then turns to look at her.

In that moment, she is suddenly very aware of twenty-one other pairs of eyes on her. She clears her throat and drops the petal. It lands on the ground. Ruby winces when the teacher crunches it under her feet and frowns at her.

She fixes the teacher in front of her with the sweetest look she can make. It worked with Yang and her father most of the time. Surely it would work with the teacher?

"Now, Ruby Rose, as we have  _finally_  grasped your attention, can you tell us the name of any type of Grimm present in Remnant?"

Ruby gives her a sheepish smile and says nothing.

"It isn’t a rhetorical question, I hope you know that."

Nope, it doesn’t work. She drops the look, but keeps the smile up.

Several giggles erupt from around the room. She doesn’t exactly care for theory lessons, really, but part of her wants to get rid of the snickering.

She recalls the black creatures in front of her and Yang that day, red mist trailing from behind their eyes and growls dripping with only the instinct to  _kill_. It had been three wolf-like Grimm, the gleam of their fangs clearly making their mark in her mind.

The slash of a grey scythe in front of them had also kept a piece of memory pinned there, though.

“Beowolves,” she replied, confident. Qrow had told her the name of those damned creatures after they had gotten back from the fight. She can never forget the moment when foul blood splattered onto her cheek and sizzled away right before Yang leapt to cover her face, shielding her sight from the gore just a few feet away from them.

The teacher nods.

“I see you’ve been paying attention despite your…daydreaming,” she tells Ruby and walks to the front of the class. “Beowolves may be common around the area, but without a proper means of escape or a suitable weapon and skill to wield it, it can kill you with a single snap of its jaws. Hence, as Hunters and Huntresses in training, we have to learn how to kill _them_  before they kill  _us_.”

“That’s gory and ruthless,” Ruby hears a boy whisper to a friend behind her. “And exciting!”

Ruby shrinks into her seat. If that was what her mother had thought was  _exciting_ , then she doesn’t want any part of that feeling. She can’t be throwing herself into the battlefield without calculating the risks, right?

Right.

Though, when she thinks about it, Qrow did lunge  _himself_ at the Beowolves to defend his nieces. Maybe she does have to wing it and jump right into it when the time calls for it.

Maybe.

She is jolted back to reality when the bell rings and students leap from their seats like they’re hot rods.

_Oh, right, it’s Uncle Qrow’s class next!_

She gathers her things up in a pile in her arms, joining the crowd pressed against each other in the corridors in a flurry of petals and squawks of shock when she barrels into the other students.

The handle of the door is rusty, but she grips it hard and tugs the door open with as much force as she can put to her hands, anyway. Qrow looks up at her from the desk in front.

“Careful you don’t cut your fingers with that rust, kiddo,” he rasps, a bottle of alcohol in his hands. “Don’t want you bleeding all over the place even before the real fights start.”

Ruby giggles. “Are you sure Signal allows alcohol in the premises, Uncle Qrow?”  
  
He winks and tips the bottle to his lips to take a swig. “Broken rules aren’t broken if no one finds out,” he replies with a grin. Ruby laughs properly now.

She walks up to the desk and trails a finger across the stationery and papers strewn across the top. The other students aren’t here yet - she had run so fast in her excitement that she had probably toppled some other kids over. Whatever. She shrugs and makes a mental note to apologise to those she had knocked into on her way.

The mental note is forgotten the moment she turns to Qrow.

“Hey, what other kinds of weapons will they be teaching us to craft in this academy?” she asks. Qrow lifts an eyebrow.

“I’m pretty sure weapon crafting is in this year’s syllabus, so I’d reckon you’ll be learning what sorts of stuff goes into that chunk you’ll be using to fight.”

Ruby nods.

“But what about specifics? You know, will they teach us how to make a sword and shield, or a gun, or some sharp thing, help us in the process?”

“They’ll be assessing your ability to create your own weapon, and you’re encouraged to be creative, so I’m pretty sure they’ll only give you the boring physics and calculations of the whole thing and then throw you the parts and expect you to build it,” Qrow replies. He leans in. “Though you already knew all that, didn’t you?”

She gives him a thousand-watt grin. “Of course!”

“So,” he says and leans forward, “what sort of weapon do you think suits you, then?”

“A scythe, like yours!”

Qrow chuckles. “Looks like we’ve got a rather eager apprentice here,” he jokes, just as the first few students begin to trickle in, some with petals stuck to their hair. Ruby pretends not to remember who she’d bumped into on the way and makes her way to her seat, not before flashing Qrow a thumbs up and a cheeky smile. He returns them with another wink.

“Alright, everybody, settle down now!” he calls out. The students quieten and turn their attention to the sweaty, slightly drunk Huntsman in front of them. “Today, we’ll be doing some work on your basic stance and that kind of stuff, you know, built on top of the theory we did yesterday.” He takes a sip from the flask in his hand and nods at the student who raises her arm.

“Professor Branwen, what do you mean by stance? What about our weapons?”

He lets out a short laugh. “Not so soon, young lady, you gotta learn how to wield a basic weapon in battle before you can actually start learning how to use your own or you’ll topple right over, and I’m not going to help you up from that.”

The student nods and murmurs collectively ripple around the room.

“So, with that down, let’s get on to proper business.”

Ruby and the other students are brought outside, where they are led to an open arena. Qrow stands in the middle.

“Here’s where we’ll be learning how to do the stuff that was translated into boring old crap in the theory lessons earlier on,” he says, producing a bunch of poles and some paper dummies. The poles have some sort of blade on their tips. “You’ll learn how to actually do those stances and find the weak spots on your enemy using your basic weaponry.”

 The students all gather around him and take a pole each. Ruby, on the other hand, stands at the side, watching them swarm about with their wooden sticks.

Did Qrow find her childish? Too eager to learn? She knew how much he had seen around Remnant and how immature she seemed in comparison. Maybe her enthusiasm was over the top. Why would anyone in their right mind want to sacrifice their time to become a Huntress just to protect without any reciprocation?

 She is snapped out of her thoughts when Qrow waves a pole in front of her face. “Hey, Ruby, aren’t you going to learn how to be a Huntress? We need more people like you in the battle in this world, after all,” he quips.

Scratch that. Her enthusiasm seems justified now.

She grins and grabs the pole to join the other students, who have already begun to assume certain stances and whacking their sticks at each other.

“Hey, hey, the teacher’s still here, y’know!” Qrow shouts. They stop and turn to face him while he clears his throat. “You’d better listen properly, or before you know it, I’ll be your next enemy.”

Several others chuckle.

“And I won’t go lightly on you,” he adds.

The whole class laughs. Qrow seems miffed. He takes a spare pole from the ground, positioning it at a dummy near him, and strikes with shocking accuracy and strength. Everyone shuts up.

He turns around with a satisfied smirk on his face to see the gaping mouths of the students. “And that, kids-“ He nods towards the mess that is a shredded-up pile of cardboard, “-is what happens to your enemies if you pay attention, and to  _you_  if you don’t.”

The class stays quiet. Ruby nudges a nearby student and whispers, “That’s my Uncle Qrow!”

He grins. 

“That’s much better. Now, we’ll start with your hand placement.”

—

The bell rings and everyone files out of the arena. Ruby is about to step out of the field when Qrow stops her.

“Hey, kiddo, it’s your last lesson for the day, right?”

“Yep! What’s up?”

He proffers his scythe and Ruby gives him a quizzical look.

“Remember when you took my scythe and was so excited about holding it that you nearly tore up the furniture in your house?” he says, a smile tugging at his lips. She laughs.

“Yeah, that was fun.”

She picks up the scythe from his hands. The dull, faint reflection of her face looks back at her and smiles.

“Can I try it out?” she asks. Qrow raises his eyebrows in approval.

She recalls the positions they had assumed during the lesson and starts swinging the scythe like she had done with the poles, but-

 “It’s too heavy!”

-she falls over right before she can land a hit on a dummy. Qrow laughs and helps her up.

 “You know, Ruby,” he laughs, “you’re complete garbage at this.”

She pouts. “Uncle Qrow! You didn’t have to put that so harshly!”

"But it’s true!”

 He goes to stand behind Ruby and holds her arms. “You know, this school may teach you the basics and drill them into you, but you have to understand that not everything can work if you always conform to the standard rules.”

Her fingers shift to rest higher on the handle of the weapon.

“Sure, the basic rules like  _always finding your ground_  have to be followed in battle, but if you always assume that all weapons are the same, then, oh boy, you’re in for a hard time.”

Her hips twist and her arms are lifted above her ear.

“So you can’t always be applying what you’ve learnt to everything. Learn what information is useful in combat and what isn’t.”

She swings the scythe and cuts the dummy in half, Qrow’s hands a tight grip on her wrists as he guides her path. Ruby stares at the dummy she had mutilated. 

“I-I did that?”

“Sure you did, Ruby.”

She turns around to look at him properly.

“That’s so cool!” she yells. “Can you teach me how to use this particular scythe, then?”

He smirks. “That’s if you’re really going to have a scythe as your weapon.”

Ruby returns the smile.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby names her new weapon.
> 
> Aka a really redundant chapter because it just drones on and on but okay, enjoy!

“Lessons sure have been crazy this week, especially with the additional weapon-wielding classes coming up,” a Faunus, Beryl, tells Ruby, and she nods.

“At least we get some time to ourselves instead of going for sparring classes at night like the third years, right?”  
  
They chuckle.

“So, what kind of weapon do you plan to make?” Ruby asks her. Beryl shrugs and pulls her ears back into the hood of her jacket.

“Honestly, I’m not quite sure. Maybe a green blade or something, you know, something easy to bring around for combat. Usually the boys would have heavier weapons, so I’d rather have something small.”

Ruby nods. She hadn’t really taken notice of the older boys in the campus, but now that she thinks about it, she did see a few boys, a year older than them, bringing around mallets and other heavier weapons. Maybe to flaunt their strength. She hated how those people marched around with a smug look on their faces. And it wasn’t just the boys.

Then, a few weeks later, she’d see them carrying whittled-down versions of their weapons, and they’d sheepishly explain to her that they’d hurt themselves while trying to perform some stunt (she hears this every single time) and had to build a new weapon.

(Yet, later in Beacon, she’d marvel at the stunts Nora Valkyrie can pull off with her own hammer without once getting hindered by the huge weapon in her small hands.)

Ruby realises Beryl is staring at her and promptly remembers that she had yet to give the Faunus an answer.

“Oh, uh, okay!” she gabbles. “That sounds convenient!”

“What about you, Ruby? What kind of weapon do you have in mind?”

Well, time to shine. She kind of has an idea of the weapon she would have.

Or maybe not _just_ an idea.

“I prefer to go with something big and flashy, like a scythe with a gun or something!” she says. “It can have those Dust pack things-“

“Magazines?”

“Yeah, magazines! The scythe can have some slots to put in some magazines and transform into  gun and shoot all those cool glowing bullets!”

She makes finger guns with her hands to lighten the mood. Ruby starts to wonder if her idea is a bit too far-fetched, and whether Beryl would laugh at how ridiculous it is, but the Faunus doesn’t say anything about its impracticality. 

“That sounds really cool!” she tells Ruby instead, much to the younger girl’s relief. “A scythe for greater impact during close combat, and a gun for long-range targets? That’s so awesome!”

Ruby grins. “I know, my uncle has a weapon I got inspiration from! Though, well, he’s got the cooler one.”

“Wouldn’t it be too heavy to carry a weapon that’s both a scythe and a gun, though?”

She thinks about it. “I’ll just have to train hard so that I don’t fall over using it, then!”

“Alright, then, all the best!”

“You too!”

They part ways as they reach the corridors of their dormitories.

Just as Ruby places her hand on the doorknob to her room, she feels a tug on her cape and turns around, only to see Qrow looming over her.

“Uncle Qrow? What are you doing here?”

“Some positivity and confidence you got there, kiddo,” he says, a hand firm on his hip. “If _you’re_ going to make sure that you can wield that weapon properly, _I’ll_ make sure I won’t let you off so easily during training.”

He turns to leave.

“But before all that, you have to craft your own weapon, too, so why not do that before lessons actually require that bull?” he calls, tilting his head over his shoulder before walking off.

It takes a few moments for his words to sink in, and once Ruby realises what he means, he’s already walking out of the corridor.

She reappears in front of him in a flurry of petals and the faint scent of nectar.

“Does that mean you’ll be helping me make my weapon?” she squeals, hanging off his arm like a jackfruit. He grins as she tumbles to the floor with a thud.

“I won’t be _helping_ you - technically, you’re supposed to do it yourself, but I’ll be there to oversee the weapon making so that you won’t accidentally drill your own hand to the wall or something.”

Ruby does a little dance in triumph.

“So, what sort of weapon do you want?” 

“A scythe, of course!” 

“Like mine?” 

Ruby thinks about it for a bit. “Nah, something better and cooler.” 

“Hey, now, that’s- that’s a bit cruel to my poor broken soul, don’t you think?” He feigns collapsing to the ground.

She shakes her head. “Not at all!” she replies brightly and skips off to her room. “So where do we start?”

“Do you have a plan, you know, a blueprint?”

She stops and turns around so that she’s staring into Qrow’s eyes with a sort of steely determination.

“I’ve been planning every single part of my weapon ever since I saw your scythe, Uncle Qrow, and I am positive this is going to be a piece of cake.” She rubs her nose and turns around awkwardly. “I mean, cakes are good. So. Right!”

—

“Or maybe not as easy as I made it out to be,” she concludes as she pours the rest of the parts from her arms and onto the desk in front of them. “This looks like it’s going to end up like Dad’s attempt at a handmade car.”

Qrow, who’s standing at the other side of the table, sniffs in laughter. “I doubt it will as long as you follow your framework properly. Taiyang looked at the plan for a total of _one_ time and then threw it into the fire.”

“Dad really did that?”

“I mean, he’s always regarded himself as an expert fixer or something, so, yeah, he did.”

She picks up a bolt and inspects it. “How did he get that impression of himself? The last time I saw him fix something, it was slotting cushions back on the sofa when Zwei threw them onto the floor.”

“One time, when we were in the academy together as teammates, he took my weapon and slammed it against the wall and the broken part came out totally by chance.” Ruby slips two of the blade’s joints together and giggles.

“Now I know never to trust him with anything I need fixed. I mean, I could always do it myself anyway, so what difference does that really make?”

Qrow nods at her. “That’s my Ruby.”

“Okay, so anyway, forget about Dad’s weirdness - this scythe should be portable and should be able to transform, you know, from a scythe into a sniper! And a scope goes there, the magazine whatever-that-thing-is should go here, and this part should be made out of-“  
  
“Woah, woah, slow down, we barely finished the first conversation and we’re already jumping to the scythe?”

“Yes!” She drops the part in her hands and nods. “If we want this to work, we should do it fast!”

“Beacon wasn’t built in a day, Ruby, take your time and carefully consider those parts.” He winks. “But then again, who needs to wait when you can go the whole way immediately?”

Ruby flashes him a huge grin. “Exactly!”

They sit in silence for a while, only the occasional drill and knock of metal filling the air.

“Hey, Ruby.”

“You gonna ask me what made me want to be a huntress?”

He ignores the fact that she even talked. “What made you want to be a huntress?”

She sucks in a deep breath and holds it, switching off the drill and placing it thoughtfully on the desk. “Well, you remember that story about Little Red Riding Hood you told me when I was younger? She wasn’t trained, so she was nearly attacked by the big bad wolf, and she had to have a woodcutter protect her.

“I want to be trained so I can help the Grandma and woodcutter without risking any danger to myself. That, and also because Yang told me about all those noble stuff Hunters and Huntresses did in those stories. Thought that’d be a great way to be a part of the community, you know, being able to protect.”

Qrow nods. He recalls the time when he had leapt in front of the Beowolves and nearly got himself killed if not for the fact that he had pulled his own scythe out in time. He hadn’t really considered the fact that there were not only three Beowolves, but three _fully-grown_ Beowolves attacking the girls.

He also hadn’t considered that Ruby was too young to be exposed to such gore and violence. He simply cut through the creatures’ hide and smashed their skulls to pieces.

Though, he thought, it’ll be good exposure for Ruby if she really wants to become a Huntress.

“But you do understand that being a Huntress isn’t just about protecting people and slaying Grimm, right?”

“What else could it possibly be, anyway?”

“You’ll see one day.”

She gives him a puzzled look.

“Alright, then, I’ll see!”

The drill whirs to life again.

—

“So, are you going to give it a name?”

They’re hovering above the weapon on the desk, inspecting the little screws and shine of the metal. Qrow turns to look Ruby in the eye. “I mean, you named your bed and table back in Patch, so maybe you’d like to name your weapon too, like, I don’t know, Fluffy?”

Ruby snorts. “I was really young back then when I named those!” she retorts. She reaches forward to caress the hook of the scythe. “But this is my sweetheart, and it definitely has to have a cool name.”

“All your things are your sweethearts, so why not give them cool names too?”

“This one stands out because it’s going to be my partner for my missions!”

She stares at it thoughtfully. “And probably a hook for Zwei to try and reach his meals in the future. I just know he’s going to be a big, strong boy!”

Qrow holds back a chuckle. “So, are you going to give it a name?” he repeats, grinning in amusement.

“You bet!”

They stare at the weapon again.

“You know, it kind of looks like a moon, doesn’t it? A crescent moon?”

“Yeah, it does.”

“And it’s my sweetheart…”

"You’d better not question that part, because if it’s not your sweetheart, the cool uncle who inspired your creation will be seriously saddened.”

“So, uh, moons and my name.”

“Ruby Moon?”

She considers the suggestion for a few moments before shaking her head. “Nah, it’ll be pretty confusing if I called it “Ruby” during battles. It’ll sound like I’m calling myself, even though that’ll actually be quite cool, too.”

“Okay, any suggestions, Miss My-weapon-needs-a-cooler-name-than-Ruby-Moon?”

She picks up the weapon, pressing the notch that collapses it into its sealed form, and hugs it to her chest. “It should take my surname if it’s like my own child, right? And it looks like a _crescent_ moon, so, how about…”

Her eyes brighten.

“Crescent Rose?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay in the new chapter! I was running out of creative juice so I decided to take a little break before writing again. Thank you for sticking with me, and hoped you enjoyed!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby learns the basics of fighting, and one day, she finally achieves the confidence to bring Crescent Rose around with her.
> 
> This coincides with a Grimm encounter in the woods, and it is during the battle against the Ursai that threaten to hurt the class that she learns what being a real Huntress truly is.

Dirt flies through the air as a blade cuts a hole into the ground and Ruby lunges forth in an attempt to cut the dummy in front of her - but fails. She falls face-first into the soil, groaning in defeat and getting a mouthful of the dirt in the process.

Qrow walks up to her. “You know, I thought you were bad with my scythe, but you’re complete garbage at this, too,” he chuckles, extending a hand towards her. She takes it with a sulk and a grubby hand.   
  
“I’m not garbage, this is just _hard_ to master!” she replies while dusting off her clothes. He raises an eyebrow.

“And who said she would do her best to learn and train, hm?”  
  
She sighs. “Yeah, that’s me.” Sand crunching beneath her feet, she assumes her stance for what seems like the hundredth time and lifts the weapon in front of her while Qrow steps back and takes out his flask to take a swig. “But I’ll still do my best!”  
  
“Alright, but remember,” he calls from behind her, “you aren’t just there to protect and defend - you’re there to incapacitate or kill your target so they won’t do the same to you, so go big or go home!”

She lets out a battle cry as she bursts forth in a flurry of petals and slashes through the bunch of dummies in front of her in frustration.

He claps twice as he approaches her heaving figure, hunched over the shreds of what remained of the mannequins. “That was good form,” he tells Ruby, who’s panting from the effort. “You could use your Semblance and combine it with your skill, and that’s good, but you have to have a backup attack in case your Aura depletes, and basically save Aura for more important things.”

“Like?” She shake her arms to free the tension in her muscles.

“Protecting your body from fatal wounds, using your Semblance during an emergency, activating Dust for the canisters in your scythe.” He raises the flask to her. “ _Those_ kind of things.”

“Then what do you think I should be doing instead of using my Semblance, then?”

 _Logically speaking, she doesn’t have much to work with_ , Qrow thinks as he surveys her Aura levels with his scroll. _Her speed is what fuels her movements, but constant use of it would deplete her energy and opportunity to survive in a fight_. He subconsciously lets out a sigh.

“You know, you could work on some signature moves that could utilise all parts of your weapon,” he tells her, handing her a bottle of water he had beside her. She takes it gratefully (and gleefully, with sparkling eyes) and gulps it down while he steps back and surveys her figure, a hand to his stubble. “You’re literally harmless without your weapon-“

“Hey!”  
  
“-so you have to make sure you’re even deadlier than your enemy when you _do_ have it.”

Qrow isn’t even sure that she can handle attacking with such a huge weapon, given her small frame and crappy footwork, but she does have determination and passion, so he’ll work with that.

“Slash through,” he says. “Cut through everything all at once, and don’t leave anything unscathed.”  
  
He glances at Ruby and is relieved to find that she isn’t at all averse to his suggestions (unlike a certain _someone_ from his team). Rather, she seems excited about the whole prospect.   
  
“Yes!” she exclaims while punching the air. “Finally, some actual action that doesn’t need boring planning!”

Huh. Seems like she’s motivated by the mere prospect of action rather than calculations and formulating plans. He shrugs and smirks to himself - his motto for battle _is_ “fuck the rules and dump the enemies’ bodies”, after all. Though he’d rather not tell Ruby that right now.

“Good that you’re so excited about it,” he says instead, and steps on the feet of some dummies lying around. They spring up to face Ruby, who readies her weapon and has the most thrilled and absolutely silly expression on her face as she takes her position again.

She disappears in yet another flurry of petals, but it isn’t long before she emerges behind a dummy and slices through it with gusto, swinging her scythe in a circular motion Qrow has never seen being done before, and cuts right through the standing figures in a few swift hand motions. He inspects the scroll in his hands.

Barely an inch of her Aura had been used up for her Semblance.

This is going much better than he’d expected.

He lets himself smile and pat Ruby on the back so hard she nearly falls over, but she returns the smile with a huge goofy grin of her own. “Was that good? Did you see me defeat those dummies, like- _whoosh, bang, phew!_ ”

It certainly was good, for a technique he’s never seen before. Except-

“Your posture was horrendous,” he starts, prodding her back with his own scythe when he draws it out of its place. She squeaks and stiffens. “If you hunch during an attack, you’ll break your back, and I don’t want to be arrested for injuring my own student while helping her practice one of her most promising attacks, you know.”

The praise that comes along with the scolding brings a sheepish smile to her eyes, even as she laughs awkwardly and scratches the back of her head. “I-I guess I was so excited, I forgot about it,” she tells Qrow, who simply ruffles her hair.

“It’s still kinda garbage, even though it was a good attempt, so you better start practicin’ if you want to master that weapon of yours.” She nods vigorously and begins preparing her next assault on more of the dummies that Qrow produces from the storeroom nearby.

One can watch Ruby slice through figure after figure tirelessly, fuelled by only her drive to use the weapon properly and the bottles of water and a pack of dinner Qrow brings for her as she continues to brutally cut up the apparitions in front of her, watching intently when he shows her new techniques with his own weapon. This takes place every evening, after classes and right before lights out.

It goes on for a few weeks.

—

“Uh, Uncle Qrow, how do you use this part of the gun again?”

“Honestly, I don’t know crap about your gun. Mine’s a shotgun, yours is a sniper, though I can tell you that all you need to do when shooting is aim in front of the target. You’ll hit it for sure.”

He takes another swig from his flask and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and sighs at the sight of Ruby staring at him in complete confusion. “Alright, alright, I’ll try and teach you how to aim and all that,” he says. She squeals again and beams up at him, and he can’t help but smile back at her.

“Thank you so much, Uncle Qrow!”

  
—

If she had walked in with such a heavy piece of metal a month or two ago, she’d probably keel over and get crushed by her own hand-crafted, heart-loved weapon after taking a single step out of her dormitory. Her friends would sigh and help her up and scold her for trying to bite more than she could chew (she doesn’t know how on earth she could even eat metal and paint and Dust in the first place, but whatever). Uncle Qrow would laugh at her. She would be a mockery. Probably. Most likely.

But it isn’t a month or two ago. It’s now. She walks into class with Crescent Rose fitted snugly over her skirt, slotted into her belt, swishing her cape so that everyone would get a good look at the machine like it’s nothing. Well, it _is_ nothing, at least to her. Muscles have probably popped up on her arms like big fat oranges already.

Though, they haven’t.

Anyway.

No one notices at first. They wave good morning to her before focusing their attention back to their assignments and papers or to the table where their drool lies from a good nap, but soon enough, she’s being overwhelmed by strange looks from everyone around.

“Isn’t that thing pretty heavy to carry around like that?”  
  
“Do you even know how to use it in the first place?”

“Isn’t it too early to be bringing it all around the place right now?”

She stops walking to her seat and faces all of them with a smile. “I guess I love weapons too much!” she says for everyone to hear. Beryl, who’s sitting at the back of the class, gives her a thumbs-up. “And who knows, maybe we’ll need it or something!”

Ruby doesn’t answer any of their probing questions once she finishes, just smiles at them and shrugs with her trademark grin plastered onto her face as the teacher walks into the room.

“Alright, everybody, I hope you remembered to bring your journals, because we’ll be going out to the forest to study the different plants out there!” she says as she sticks her head into the room. Ruby’s never actually noticed before, but now she keeps her eye on the retracted blades secured at her belt, and watches her secure a few Dust canisters in her weapons in awe.

The rest of the class immediately revs up with chatter and scraping chairs as they file out of the room. Ruby joins Beryl at the back.

“Isn’t it exciting?” the Faunus whispers. 

Ruby’s eyes widen in confusion. “What is?” she asks.

She produces a bag of cookies from her bag, fishing it out as carefully as she can.“I have cookies to last us for the whole trip, so you don’t have to worry about getting hungry during the lesson!” Ruby squeals at the sight and makes grabby hands at the foil bag. It rustles noisily.

The teacher raises an eyebrow at them, but doesn’t say anything and continues her roll call. Beryl’s shoulders sag in relief.

“We’ll eat them later, so you can lay your hands off the bag now, Ruby,” she laughs.

Ruby groans in disappointment just as they begin to walk off.

—

“Alright, everyone, take out your journals and get this down! This is very important when you’re in battle, especially if you’re injured and you need to recharge quickly for the next fight!”

They’re standing in a clearing in the woods. It’s close enough that a student could jog back in five minutes, but far enough that their class would be free from any distraction (read: shouts of overexcited students in sparring classes). Ruby likes this class - it means she can take a break from breathing the stale recirculated air of the homerooms, and at the same time, observe the baby Grimm that crawl along the plants.

“This, everyone, is a useful plant that you can find nearly everywhere, but it’s easily confused with the poisonous leaves of another tree, so to tell them apart, you do this…”

The teacher’s voice fades out of her bubble as Ruby tunes in to another conversation near her.

“…and what makes you think that you’re so special?”

It comes from behind her, and Ruby pretends to take down notes as she continues to listen, despite Taiyang’s lectures on eavesdropping and how rude it is. Whatever, she doesn’t care.

  
“All I’m saying is that I don’t need this lesson about flowers and herbs and weird crap that grows here!” the person says, swinging his book around. “We’re here to learn how to fight, plus, I’m too good to get injured!”  
  
“And you’re also saying that you’re better than me, who _dutifully takes flowery, sissy notes_ down?” the other growls. “You’re being so complacent!”  
  
“Yeah, I’m saying that! And I’m not!”  
  
“You are!”  
  
The tension in the air’s so strong Ruby has to take a step forward to avoid tripping over the ropes by mistake. She tries to concentrate on the lesson going on in front of her.

“Hey, Ruby.” Beryl nudges her. There’s a sense of urgency behind her prod, so Ruby looks up from her book and gives her a quizzical look.

“What’s wrong?” she asks. “Did you miss out the last part? Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered-“

“No, not that!” the Faunus hisses. She nods towards the two bickering students behind them. “I have a bad feeling about them. Remember how one of the teachers told us about how Grimm are drawn to negative feelings? Might arguing lure one here?”  
  
Ruby glances back nervously. It’s true that Grimm are attracted to the negativity that people exude. She’s experienced that firsthand, with Yang’s teary confusion and Ruby’s fear drawing the three Grimm to them.

“And it’s in the middle of the woods, too-“  
  
An Ursa Major bursts through the bushes behind them and charges towards the two squabbling students.

(Ruby secretly marvels at the perfect timing, but now isn’t the time to make jokes like these, so she swallows her witty observation and maintains a straight face.)

Everyone starts to scream, and the teacher pulls the blades out of her belt and brandishes it at the Grimm. It snarls at them, unfazed by the threat in front of it.

“Everybody, get behind me! Don’t go anywhere, and don’t panic!” she shouts as she leaps towards the monster. It lets out a roar and begins slashing at her with its paws.

As if she hadn’t even spoken, the class continues to shriek their heads off in terror, huddling together in an attempt to hide from the attack. Ruby catches sight of the two students and watches as they try to blend in with the others, shame sticking to their cheeks in a bright flush.

The Ursa stops its advance for a moment and stands on its hind legs, letting loose a howl towards the sky.

The ground trembles along with the terrified class, and from all around them, smaller, but equally deadly Ursa Minor burst through the foliage. Their gazes are set on the students, never once leaving them unnoticed.

Ruby looks up at the teacher, but her blades are currently interlocked with the Grimm’s claws, and she can’t possibly help them now.

There’s only one thing to do.

She pulls Crescent Rose off her waist and charges towards the Ursa nearest to her with a cry, pulling a trigger and unveiling the scythe sealed within the metal.

“Go away, you huge not-cute teddy bear!” she screams as she blocks a slash from the Ursa’s paws and throws it off the weapon with a swift maneuver. It slams against a tree, but gets back up in seemingly no time and charges at them once more.

By now, the rest of the smaller Ursai have their attention on her, and they begin to head for the tiny form standing in front of her entire class.

She tightens her grip on her weapon and grits her teeth. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t scared out of her mind, but she knows she can’t let the fear control her. So she leaps forth in a burst of Aura and roses and knocks the Ursai back, away from them, away from their much more vulnerable selves.

They shake their heads once, twice, and head for her again.

Her arms are shaking in the first waves of exhaustion, and she knows she can’t hold up much longer, even with the training she got from Qrow. She advances once more and pushes them back with decently-aimed shots of gravity Dust that throws them off balance and crashes them into the ground. But again, they get back up and gallop towards her, eyes burning even brighter with the taste of killing on their tongues.

One of the Ursai get to her before she can process what’s going on in front of her, and she is mercilessly hurled into a tree behind the class. Crescent Rose is flung across the clearing, landing a few feet away from her.

She silently thanks her Aura’s presence as it crackles through her body.

Pushing herself up, Ruby catches sight of their teacher charging at the Grimm. Each aim at the Ursa is filled with no mercy, no pity, only _hatred_ , only _vengeance_. With each attack swiping her away, another series of strikes knocks and injures the Grimm further. There isn’t any thought of sparing her enemy, no intent on letting it go that easily.

Ruby then looks back at the smaller Ursai heading towards her and clenches her fists.

 _This can’t go on,_ she thinks as she wipes away the sweat forming on her forehead. _I need to make sure they can’t attack again, like what Uncle Qrow told me, or we’ll never survive!_

She leaps to her feet and grabs her weapon off the ground, pushes a foot back into the dirt, gripping her scythe in the position Qrow had taught her-

“I said, go away!”

-and breaks into a sprint, swinging the weapon into a Grimm’s skull. The Ursai growls in pain as the bone gives way under the pressure of the scythe and splits into several pieces with a satisfying crunch. She leaps away from the creature’s flailing claws and snapping jaws and back to the ground.

Cocking the gun of her weapon, she slams the tip of the weapon into the ground and fires, the glowing Dust hitting the now-exposed flesh of the Grimm and exploding in a display of sparks and flames. With a cry of agony, it falls to the ground with a heavy thud and heaves a last breath as its eyes lose their deadly glare.

Its corpse begins to disappear in a trail of dark smoke. She watches it sizzle and pop, the last of its limbs breaking apart and snaking into the air in flaky chunks.

Her shocked gaze switches to one of utter amazement as it shifts from the dead Grimm to the scythe she’s still holding on to dear life, and back to the fading body in front of her.

“So this is what my weapon can really do?” she gasps, bringing the scythe closer to her and watching each of its parts shift and groan when she retracts its blade and forms into a gun. For a short moment, she’s lost in a fantasy, imagination running on and on as she conjures all the possibilities of new fighting styles and uses for it.

Then she’s pulled back to reality when the other students begin to scream at her, and she catches a whiff of the odour of death clinging onto the Ursa lurking behind her. Startled and caught by surprise, she stumbles forward and is rewarded for her mistake with a punch in the back, sending her tumbling face-first in the dirt.

She spits out the leaves that have found their way into her mouth and furrows her eyebrows in concentration. From the corner of her eye, the teacher pulls her blades across the Ursa’s exposed chest in quick slashes.

Standing back up, she launches herself towards the Grimm with her Semblance, pushes them over - a tough job, considering they’re all much heavier than her, but she does it anyway by some sort of miracle her Semblance and scythe gift her - and propels her weapon against their underbellies in the clockwise motion she’d practiced so hard to get correct.

They howl in anguish as they, like the first Ursa Minor, begin to disintegrate and fade into the air around them.

Just as Ruby straightens back up and starts to prepare for the next wave of Grimm, they all hear a thud and a sinister sizzle from the simultaneous fight next to them. All of them turn, only to be greeted by the sight of their teacher panting from exertion, gripping the blades that drip with black smog and hovering beside the collapsed corpse of the Ursa Major, its head-

The class begins to scream at the severed head in horror, the sight of its lifeless eyes unsettling even the calmest of the students.

But Ruby takes it all in, not the slightest bit perturbed by the gore. Instead, she watches in amazement as their teacher glances back from where she stands, lunging at the rest of the Ursai that surround the students without even so much as a break to catch her breath.

With one, two, three skilled cuts to the throats and a crushing of the skulls of the Grimm into the ground, they let loose yelps of pain as they fall to the ground and are left to die. Their teacher sighs in relief, sheathing her weapons and beginning a roll call to make sure none of the class has been hurt or gone missing.

Ruby slumps to the ground and students rush up to her to thank and congratulate her win over the Grimm, the two arguing Hunters among them, but she is too tired to respond. Instead, she seals Crescent Rose and looks up at the teacher - one of the many trained warriors in the school who kept fighting, never backed off, never took a break from the battle she was engaged in.

“So this is what it’s like to be a Huntress.”

Her hazy thoughts are swept away by a hand waving a familiar bag in front of her.

"This was supposed to be for us to share, but I think you're pretty cool for saving all of our lives from those Grimm there, so you can have the entire bag of cookies," Beryl says, grinning at her.

Ruby laughs. Well, cookies are definitely part of being a Huntress too, if it went by her conclusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, this took a long time to write! I'm so sorry for the delay in publishing the chapters!! These past weeks have been filled with so many projects, tests and revision for the finals coming up at the end of the month that I simply can't get the time to write this chapter until this blessed one-week holiday :')
> 
> The next chapter will most probably be posted after my end of year exams (which ends early October), so it'll be kind of a long wait till then. Thank you all so much for your support and patience, and I'm so sorry for the inconvenience!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this story so far! <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The class returns from their class trip after that close encounter. When Qrow hears of the news, he runs to find Ruby - but he not only finds her looking for him, he discovers that she's picked up way more than he'd expected from those battles.
> 
> The final chapter - Ruby sets her path towards becoming a skilled Huntress.

“Ruby Rose, are you alright? Are you hurt anywhere?”  
  
The teacher is crouching over her, holding her arms to steady her shivering body as she checks for injuries. “That was very brave of you, Ruby.”  
  
“She’s awesome!” a classmate somewhere beside her - she doesn’t know, doesn’t care either - shouts.  
  
“The bee’s knees!” another chimes in, but before any more can add their praise and admiration, they are shushed by the teacher.

“Now, now, let’s give her some space and not cook her in a bee ball, she’s tired enough as it is!”  
  
Ruby is secretly grateful for her instruction as everyone takes a step back, even though the gasps of awe makes her feel rather pleased with herself. She can still feel their eyes plastered on her and Crescent Rose, which is resting beside her. It’s still better than having everyone’s voices buzzing around her head, though.

“Thanks, Mrs. Cayenne, I’m fine, just- just a bit shaken,” she tells the teacher, who smiles in relief and stands up, not before giving her a pat on the shoulder.

“That’s great. Thank _you_ , for helping to keep the class safe. I’m assuming Mr. Branwen taught you your skills?”  
  
Ruby nods once to avert an oncoming headache from her excitement.

“I see. That’s very nice. Take a rest, Beryl will make sure you don’t black out while I’ll check if everyone’s here.” She steps in front of the entire class, who has huddled into a tight ball, eyeing her and Ruby.

“Is everyone alright, then?” she calls.

The teacher holds up her scroll, tapping in names and glancing up to make sure everyone is accounted for.

“You know, that was really, really brave of you,” Beryl whispers to Ruby as she tears the cookie packet open and gives it to her. “I was really scared that those Ursai would eat us, but you! You just took out your weapon and sliced them to pieces! I’m sure none of us could ever do _that_.”

Ruby huffs in laughter, taking the foil and digging in. “That wasn’t even the best yet, you know,” she says. “My Uncle Qrow still hasn’t taught me the rest of the stuff he’s planning to train me to do, so these are only some of the basics. I was surprised at how strong Crescent Rose was, and there were some times I kinda- kinda blanked out.”

“Mr. Branwen, huh? He’s got to be a really good scythe wielder if he were to be able to teach you such awesome moves! Plus, you’re doing great, Ruby, you don’t have to worry about suddenly forgetting what to do or stuff like that as long as you have it in muscle memory.”

“That’s true.” She stares at the packet for a second, letting the fresh aftershocks of the attack flow through her and revelling in the satisfaction it gives her. “Now, let me enjoy my cookies!”

In the end, the teacher decides that they’ll go back earlier to avoid any more clashes with Grimm, especially as more of them might be heading their way. So, with half-filled notebooks and unnerved minds in tow, the class heads back to the campus. “There, we’ll continue with our lesson with the samples from the laboratory while the other teachers review the safety of the woods,” she tells them as they pack up and get ready to go back.

When they trickle back into the main gates of the school, students, whose friends have already gotten word of the incident - thank god for scrolls and panicking teachers - are smothered by roommates and other friends. The professors surround their teacher, who’s shrugging off a strained muscle in her arm, asking her questions about the situation and helping her handle the other students. 

Ruby catches “too young”, “dangerous” and “life-threatening” when she hears her name whispered among the hushed discussions between the teachers, but otherwise, they glance at her with a sort of awe and respect, and she can’t help but feel proud of it.

They are herded into their class to be counted and accounted for. As they walk, Beryl tears the third packet of cookies open, the first two having been scarfed down by Ruby, and offers it to her, who gleefully reaches in to grab three at once and stuffs them in her mouth. “Where _do_ you get all these?” Ruby asks in between chews, spraying crumbs everywhere.

“My uncle sent a whole package of them to me,” Beryl replies, nibbling on a cookie herself. “He went to Atlas for a project, and they had some festival, so he got these as a gift. Atlas does have good cookie machines!”

Speaking of _uncles_.

Somewhere in the distance, she hears a familiar caw echo around the school and stops in her tracks.

“Ruby?” Beryl gives her a strange look.

“I-I think I heard something around there - I’ll go take a look!” She wolves down the rest of the cookies she had taken before Beryl can respond and dashes off behind the pillars, feeling guilty for leaving the Faunus all alone in the corridor. Well, at least she didn’t lie.

She activates her Semblance and heads towards the courtyard, which isn’t really that far from her class, but she knows it can’t wait and she really, _really_ has to hurry. Some stray older students, released from their classes early and are wandering towards their next lessons, are left bewildered by the cloud of roses barely whipping past their shoulders-

“Sorry!”  
  
-and after hearing that whizz past their ears, they are more puzzled than ever. Ruby wishes she could control her Semblance more so that she wouldn’t have to keep bumping into innocent, confused students.

When she catches sight of the tell-tale trees sprouting among the concrete tiles, she drops to the ground from where she was travelling, cape flying behind her. The crow she had expected to see when she had arrived is flying through the massive area.

The moment it lays its eyes on her, it caws once, twice, and crashes head-first into a tree it hadn’t seen in front of it.

“Uncle Qrow!”

She breaks into a run. Qrow, now sitting on the ground, rubbing his head to quash the start of a rising lump, looks up - and the moment he sees her running to him, he stands up and rushes to her despite the bump forming on his forehead.

“Ruby, are you hurt anywhere?” he asks, looking all over her to check for injuries like he hadn’t just flown beak-first into a hundred year-old tree. “I heard about the incident back at the woods, and even though I can trust old Cayenne to protect you kids, I was still worried. Are you alright?”  
  
“Yeah, I am! Don’t worry about me, Uncle Qrow, I even helped to fight off the Grimm!”

“That's good- wait, you did _what?_ ”

Ruby gives him a quizzical look. “Is anything wrong?” she asks. Qrow’s initially dumbfounded expression is replaced by a grin and he swoops her up into his arms.

“Nothing, pipsqueak. I can see why Taiyang says you kids get it from my side of the family, and even though that sounds like a bad thing, all _I_ can say is that he can sod off and let me be proud of my niece.”

Ruby whoops in delight and pats her weapon. “You know, it was so fun using my sweetheart! You should have seen my class! Their faces were priceless when they saw the Grimm being sliced up.”

He ruffles her hair as they begin to head back to her class. “So, what did you see during the fight?” he asks her.

She lets the residual thrill pass through her veins once more, the memories of the fight replaying. 

“I saw the teacher fighting on and on without ever stopping, and how the Ursa Major’s head was sliced off when she was battling it,” she says. Her voice softens, now that she thinks about it and realises a few things she’s never even let into her mind when she was fighting. Maybe she should pay attention to her surroundings more. 

If the legend was true, then the creators of Grimm really put in effort to make sure their successors would work hard. The environment was tied to them, and they were tied to it as a part of the cycle of life. Ruby _has_ to learn how to adapt.

 _Taiyang really spoiled these kids,_ Qrow thinks.

“And what do you think of it?”  
  
Ah. There’s the question she has to answer.

“Well, it was pretty gory and chaotic of course, but it was necessary,” she tells him. “Necessary if I really need to protect others. And that’s what I want to do, so seeing all that violence and stuff isn’t really that bad.”

“Are you sure?” he probes. He’s been out there, and he’s seen _things_. Things that aren’t fit for children to see, but Ruby isn’t a small child anymore. In front of him stands a warrior in training - a warrior with silver eyes.

“I’m sure, Uncle Qrow!”

They say that those born with silver eyes were destined to live the life of strong, capable warriors, feared by even the fiercest of Grimm.

“Well, I guess it’s true, then,” he mutters, just as they begin to walk back to the classroom. Ruby looks back at him.

  
“What’s true?” she asks.

Qrow chuckles in sly amusement. “Nothing,” he tells her, and she turns around to continue narrating her fight with the Grimm. He figures he’d let a certain headmaster tell her that when she’d graduated.

—

“Jaune, behind you!”  
  
He yelps and tumbles to the ground, his shield up against the Beowolf that had shoved him down. Just as the creature is about to make a grab for his abdomen - for the flesh that resides there - Ruby bursts through the foliage and catches the Grimm’s neck in her scythe’s hook.

The Grimm lets a piercing screech into the air, Crescent Rose’s solid presence around its throat serving as a reminder that it’s trapped in the hands of an enemy barely coming up to its waist. But before it can turn around to snap at Ruby, to get rid of the pest, she secures the scythe, locking it in position, and looking through the cracked scope with a skilled eye, pulls the trigger-

-and blood rains down on them like silent petals in the spring of when they first joined Beacon.

The sight of sizzling flesh, now a desensitised scene to Ruby, brings forth a whoop from Nora, who had fired her hammer to propel Ruby forward. She bounces out of the leaves and beams.

“That was some good reflexes there, Ruby, don’t cha’ think?” she says, shielding her eyes with a hand as she looks into the sky. A Nevermore circles the area above them.

Ren wades through the grass on the other side to join them. “That Nevermore’s been eyeing us since the wave of Grimm. We need to take it down quickly, or it might attack us during the next surge.” He slots a Dust canister into Stormflower and fits it into the pockets on his thighs as he talks. “What should we do?”  
  
Next to them, Jaune sits up. “Hey, Ruby, “do you think you could use your ‘good reflexes’ and speed to get that down so we can attack it?” he asks her.

Ruby grins, knowing full well where this is going. “Consider it done!” she yells as she fires Crescent Rose towards the ground and flings herself into the air, doing a somersault to gain momentum.

She glances below her to check for her teammates’ positions, catching sight of Jaune shouting instructions to the other two. Jaune, although pretty questionable at fighting (she wouldn’t call his fighting _bad_ , but it still has _quite_ some room for improvement), has a real knack for strategy planning, and she trusted that he’d direct themselves away from where the Nevermore would land.

Looking back up, she hooks her scythe onto the Nevermore’s wing, pulling herself up and breaking into a sprint the moment her feet finds its grip.

By now, it has noticed Ruby climbing up its wing. It flaps harder to get her off, but she hangs on with a firm grip on its feathers, learnt from years of spending time with all kinds of Grimm. Before she can be thrown off - rendering the plan useless - she stabs her scythe into it and runs, slicing through the feathers and muscle underneath. It shrieks as they plunge towards the ground, and using the speed, she digs the tip of her weapon into a joint and fires. 

She is catapulted into the air above the falling Grimm by the force of the shot, but she knows how to land - it’s been buried into muscle memory, and the only thing she can focus on that moment is how satisfied she is with her work as she dives towards the ground.

When the Grimm crashes to the grass, its wing mutilated beyond recognition by swift, experienced strikes, Ren darts out from the trees, never one to lose a given opportunity, and pins his blades into its wing before it can stand. Nora follows his every action closely. With a trapped, badly injured wing, the Nevermore struggles to get back up, but it is beaten to it by Magnhild smashing into its head the moment its wing was pinned. The girl smirks as it screams, its final plea of help merely a weak cry.

With one final swing, Ruby propels herself from the air and into the Grimm’s head with a shot of gravity Dust. Actions that have been ingrained so deeply into her muscle show their worth as the scythe pierces through the avian’s skull.

They stand back to watch the corpse - or what remains of it - dissipate into the sky.

Ruby pulls the sets the tip of her weapon into the soil and grins, memories of the first fight she’d ever had looking back at her from the crackling blood her arm is drenched in.

“ _This_ is what it means to be a Huntress.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter of PTTM! Thank you all so much for sticking with this fic, even though updates were rather choppy and random. I'll be having my finals after this, so maybe I'll write more RWBY stuff after that!
> 
> Again, thank you for reading! Do leave any comments :D

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!!


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